Years ago, a lady called me, her priest, to ask if it was true that Jesus
healed "the bends".

I assured her I didn't think that was a problem presented to him since
the first dives possible of producing the "bends" didn't occur until the
time of the American Revolution.

She replied that her Bible (King James Version of 1611) said, "that Jesus
healed divers diseases."

From: Mary El Finger (maryelfi cox.net)
Subject: feedback: divers

I remember being puzzled as a child in Sunday School by a Bible story
which told of Jesus healing those with "divers diseases". Why did he
only heal the divers, I wondered, and what kind of diseases did they
have? rashes from the water? other sicknesses from germs in the water?
(I don't think I knew about the bends in the 1930s). No one else
seemed to find it strange, and I was too shy to ask. It was the King
James version, of course (Mark, 1:34).

I once worked for a firm of landscape architects/city-planners here
in Seattle. One of them had inadvertently used the word "pubic",
instead of "public", in a land use report. Luckily we caught it
before it got to the boss's desk.

And re the etymology of the word "prise" (Wow! My e-mail spellcheck
just marked that as a misspelled word! Ignorant computer!), the word
"prize", used in the Aubrey & Maturin series of books by Patrick O'Brian
(the first is Master & Commander, and the word is also used in the
recent movie by the same name), indicates a war ship which has been
seized, thereby bringing prize money to the crew of the ship which
has seized her.

I have been teaching English for fifteen years or so, and my favorite
spellchecker blooper came from a friend's class. It was an interesting
essay on Salinger's Holden Caulfield, said to suffer from "Attention
Defecate Syndrome." Oh, but for a watchful eye there, instead of the
instant fix . . .

That reminds me of when I was working as a secretary in France and I
mistyped "Meilleures salutations" (Best regards). My spellchecker replaced
it with "Meilleures salivations"! Luckily I spotted it in time.

From: Lorna Dzialo (ldzialo landam.com)
Subject: Spellchecker Words

When my son was in the last few weeks of his senior year of high school,
he had a minor run-in with a teacher. My son had never been in trouble
during his four years at the school, but the assistant principal sent me
a note about the incident. I believe she wanted me to do something about
my son's senioritis, but spellcheck got the better of her. The note told
me that she realized that my son had "senoritas", but he needed to behave.

From: Lise Rosenthal (lise rakefet.com)
Subject: spell check

In 1988 I returned from a nine-year stay on a kibbutz where the highest
form of technology I encountered on a regular basis was a sewing machine
that made aliyah from Poland in the 1930s. Upon arriving in the US, I got
a job at a synagogue, was shown to my tiny office and introduced to my
computer which, to my excitement, had a marvelous toy called Spell Check.

The day I discovered Spell Check, I needed to produce a thank-you letter
for a sizable donation. I typed up my document and then let the all-knowing
machine check my spelling and make any corrections it felt, in its infinite
wisdom, needed to be made. As I was folding the letter to insert it into
the envelope, the name caught my eye. My helpful electronic friend had
changed the donor's name from Michael Goldring to Miasmal Gobbling. I
retyped the letter and went out at noon and bought a dictionary.

From: Eric Anderson (eric ecollege.com)
Subject: Mandolin Genetics

This reminds me of a freshman biology student I had that turned in a lab
report on "Mandolin Genetics". Of course it was supposed to be about
Mendelian Genetics, but like many science terms the automated spell
checker had no idea what that was. She looked even more confused when I
suggested that if she could discover the genetics and breeding habits of
Mandolins that she could become quite famous.

From: Dennis Chong (chongd starpower.net)
Subject: Scrabble

You wrote that "[y]ou could use them to your advantage: to defeat your
opponents in a game of Scrabble, for example." I have to tell you, as a
frequent player of Scrabble, I hope the words you choose for this week
are more practical than some of the nonsense words that have made their
way into the Official Scrabble Players' Dictionary!

In the rarefied world of Scrabble words, "et" is a past-tense form of
"eat" (try telling Tommy's third-grade composition teacher that); "za"
is an acceptable word meaning "pizza", and nontraditional alternate
spellings abound (no examples roll off my head at the moment). For a
game that's based upon words, I often question whether a child using
the Official Players' Dictionary would be served or hurt by it.

Divers mysterious emblems showing three hares, each with two ears, but
with only three ears in all, have been found in many countries, going
back for 1500 years. Three British investigators are trying to discover
their origin and meaning. You can read about them in the December edition
of The World's First Multi-National e-Book.

We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken
for what they are, the signs of our ideas, and not for things themselves.
-John Locke, philosopher (1632-1704)